Addenda! These are things I meant to say last time but didn’t because a) it would make the previous post apocalyptically long, b) I forgot.

– History department foolishness, in apparent response to my unnecessarily tetchy email to Lynne Brydon (if you’re stalking my blog now, hi! I’m still not convinced!) has reached new heights for second year, combining miserable self-contradicting stupidity in paper returns (I got my ROMW essay back; the following day everyone else couldn’t, and then couldn’t for a week), mislaid papers (the model essays for Group Research, which were going to be pretty much my only salvation; the exam scripts from LAST YEAR which I’ve given up on ever seeing) and levels of spam that they barely reached last year. In order to get to the latest few pieces of meaningless, inconsequential crap that the office is spamming us with, I had to scroll past 888 email addresses, either because the office’s clunkily ancient software is incapable of BCCing or because the department itself is. THIS IS 2011, HOW IS THIS SORT OF IDIOCY EVEN POSSIBLE. <3 having programmed "end" onto one of the buttons on my fancy gamer mouse.

– I have been locking my bike on the outside of the totally unfit-for-purpose increasingly-frayed wooden porch support beam in order to avoid accidentally crushing the daffodils/narcissi that have poked their heads above the ground of late. However, I now have to put it back in the flowers' faces, to avoid Alex accidentally crushing my bike, as he ever-so-excitingly has a NEW CAR. Sorry, daffodils! Your lot in life was to end up the punchline of a lame ham-handed joke about technology and the environment.

– I went to a Birmingham GDL Open Day, and while the first two people were miserably bad at making either the subject sound good or Birmingham a nice place to do it, the third launched into an impromptu lecture on contract law which was – seriously – enthralling. More certain than ever that this is a subject I am suited for and will enjoy. Pursuant to this, am getting involved with the excellent new "Law for Non-Law Society" (created because the Law Society hates potential GDL students as outsiders, and apparently the first of its kind in the country). May be going for a committee position at the AGM soon; may not.

– I hate Group Research. This has been my catchphrase pretty much since we started Group Research, but I hate Group Research. Presentation is, surprisingly, going okay (mostly), but I can't help but feel doomed about both it and the attendant essay, because it's been hideously badly explained to us. What is it? Academic essay requiring academic references? Original research claiming salience and significance? "we went here and dun this" travelogue… thing? What even is the style for referencing "random bits of paper found in a box at the archives"? They didn't cover this at the library inductions. Stuart has told us that he will give us plenty of leeway. He has also told us that there will be a second marker. I'm so glad I have a lot of good marks banked for this year already, because I don't see any way anyone is coming out of this well.

I have been terribly incommunicado this of late. First uni work peaked, then I spent reading week being ill and writing a novel. (More on that later, when it’s FINISHED.) And this isn’t a return to form, just a copout image post. Enjoy!

Gameplay Changes
Heavy changes
Minigun spin-up/down time reduced by 25%
Minigun firing movement speed increased to just under half-normal (from 80 to 110).
Throwing a sandvich to a teammate now earns a full bonus point (was half a point).